Day One - Arrival in Miami
18 February 2010 | Miami
Alex (pretty sunny and warm)
The early afternoon had us arriving at the Miami Airport, ready and eager for our big adventure. The skies were blue, and amidst all those high rises and city hustle and bustle, I am sure that we would find a palm tree or two!! We quickly checked in and out and through customs and grabbed our shuttle to the Car Rental, where we could have, for an extra $50/day, been the proud renters of the Manager's Special : a bright shiny new yellow Corvette Convertible !! Alas, we stuck to our guns and got what we came for, until we noticed that our lot was to be an off white (as in very used) Aveo. Ick. I guess we just couldn't get the shiny yellow Corvette out of our minds, and the Aveo was just small and rinky dinky and smelled of cigarette smoke and... well, luckily Dave found something wrong and we were handed a Hybrid Prius instead. Tres Cool.
Checkout of that seemed more complicated than checking through customs, however after and a bit, and a snafoo or two later, we figured out north from south and east from west, and were finally pointed in the right direction and merged right into traffic galore !! Well at least we'd arrived safe and sound, the sun was shining and there were palm trees :)
Check in at the Travelodge in Homestead was effortless, the staff very friendly, our room large and clean, and voila, a few hours later we were unpacked and raring to go and hungry so our stomachs dictated the pointed direction.
Bryan the front desk guy had recommended we go to Sundowners, in Key Largo, at MM 104, not far at all he assured us, and sure enough a scant half hour later we were there, just on time too, as this was apparently THE PLACE to go to dine while watching the sun go down.
We started the evening off with a couple of sundowners, appropriate non?? and SALUT !!
The sunset was indeed spectacular, and we were duly impressed with our meals of Yellowtail Snapper (and fresh vegetables) and Mahi Mahi (with wild rice). The Coconut Pineapple bread and whipped honey butter quickly disappeared (would that have been Dave ??) Both meals were terrific, the YellowTail snapper, with a mango salsa, nice and light, and the Mahi Mahi, crusted with onion, a little denser, but just as good.
Our waiter, Noah, was such a fun host (doesn't that make ANY dining experience that much more fun ??) and brought us, "on the house" a broken piece of Key Lime Pie. A seriously large slice of pie with a tiny sliver in the crust that he swore, could not be sold "as is" ... so it was ours for the sharing. Do I even need to tell you how incredibly amazingly delicious it was? Homemade of course, and gently nestled in a tangy lime sauce...
A perfect arrival and end to the first day !!